


Slue-Foot Sue and the Riders in the Sky

by Gehayi



Category: American Folklore, Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms, Pecos Bill and Slue Foot Sue (American Tall Tale)
Genre: Courtship, F/M, Fix-It, Horses, Quests
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-19
Updated: 2017-05-19
Packaged: 2018-11-02 09:06:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10941315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gehayi/pseuds/Gehayi
Summary: In which Slue-Foot Sue bounces up to the sky and then, with the help of a magical horse, must find her way home to Pecos Bill while saving some ghostly cowboys from the Devil.





	Slue-Foot Sue and the Riders in the Sky

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lalalalalawhy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalalalalawhy/gifts).



> **Prompt:** Sue just gets such a lame ending! Plus, how much do we really know about Sue and Pecos Bill? Not much. Can you flesh that out for me? Pecos Bill can ride a tornado, Slue-foot Sue can ride a catfish in the Rio Grande. They've got to have an amazing courtship.
> 
> Plus, check it out: cowboys were largely black and latino in real life, and Sue was riding in the Rio Grande, literally the border to Mexico. If you could inject some diversity into this story, I would love you forever.

Slue-Foot Sue dead? Shoot, no! I won't say that Pecos Bill didn't think she was dead, once't, and there were plenty o' gals who woulda given near anythin' for Sue to BE dead so's they could have a chanct with Bill, so you c'n see how the story got about. But Sue weren't the sort just keeled over and died, no matter how likely you'd think death'd be for an ordinary woman. 'Cause if there was one thing Sue wasn't, it was ordinary.

Now the first time Bill saw her, he was fishin' with the pack of coyotes that raised him and she was ridin' a giant catfish down the Rio Grande, standin' up in the saddle and alternatin' which hand she was holdin' on with so that she could take potshots at the clouds from different angles. Bill glanced up at the clouds, and at first all he saw was lots and lots of twisty, spiraling scrollwork—the purtiest pattern you ever did see. But then he realized that the holes her shots had punched in the clouds formed a huge frame half as big as the sky, and all the bullets had ricocheted off the clouds inside the frame to form a portrait of his own face. And the bullets what weren't forming the lines of the portrait? Why, they were pinning the clouds to the sky so that they couldn't drift apart and spoil the picture.

It's not often you meet a woman who's such a talented sharpshooter AND so artistic. Bill was already inclined in her direction. But then he took a look at her—hair as dark and wild as a thundercloud's, skin as brown as Texas earth, and eyes the color of the river she was riding in—and he lost his heart completely. No one could blame him. Sue was a right beauty, half Texan and half Mexican, and some said she was the daughter of the Rio Grande herself. 

Of course, some folks said that he married her the next day, and there's no question but that Bill wanted to do just that. But gals take courtin' and weddings pretty serious, and Sue wanted to spend some gettin'-to-know-yuh time with Pecos Bill first, and once she talked him 'round to the idea, he got to likin' it. Whether it was wranglin' on a cattle drive (Bill tyin' the feet of the cattle with the four winds while Sue grabbed a fistful of lightning and beat it into a brandin' iron whose touch were as gentle as a mama's kiss is supposed to be) or picnicking on a narrow ledge in the Grand Canyon, they were always together. 

The two of them also developed a habit of excusin' themselves to go off and get a sudden present for the other. One day Sue would be racing the wind to the top of Pike's Peak, pluckin' some blue roses, and then binding up one leg so that she wouldn't speed back to her beloved Bill twice as fast and meet her past self on the way. The next day Bill would be shootin' all the stars out of the sky (except for one that he left to be a guide to cowpokes) to find the perfect star for Sue's weddin' ring. The setting for the ring , of course, was no problem, as at midsummer, afore he met her, Pecos Bill had lassoed a sunbeam—the brightest, purest gold you can possibly imagine.

Meanwhile, in the evenings when Bill had peeled off home, Sue wove and sewed and tatted her wedding gown. It was part wind and part fluffy white cloud, and it was covered in lace made from white water, while her veil was the mist of Western waterfalls. When she donned that veil and slipped the dress over hoops purty near wide enough to encircle the Earth, Sue looked like a queen.

Eventually, the dress was finished, as was the weddin' ring made out of a blazin' blue-white star and sunlight (to the amazement of the jeweler, who'd thought he'd never get it done). This was none too soon for Pecos Bill and Slue-Foot Sue, who could scarcely bear to be apart any longer. So Bill went and spoke to a fine ol' preacher-man he knew asking him when he could marry the two of them. The preacher said three days—it was Friday and he had a revival meetin' on Saturday and services on Sunday. Bill agreed. Then he went home, told Sue, and between the two, they invited all their human friends, all their animal friends, all of Sue's river-relatives, and every spirit of every place, animal, bird and fish anywhere west of the Mississippi. 

They say even the sun crashed the party for a minute or two, and that the place where it stood is now known as the hottest place on earth. (Bill and Sue had to tell the sun that ordinary humans just couldn't survive its presence—or that of the moon, who was right behind it—and so both of them left. But they were purty miffed, which explains what happened later on.)

After the weddin' ceremony, and the weddin' breakfast, and the dancin' afterwards, Pecos Bill asked Slue-Foot Sue what she would like him to give her as a weddin' gift. He'd been thinkin' of roping the rings of Saturn and giving 'em to Sue as a Sunday hat, but he'd decided to ask her what she wanted.

And what Sue wanted most in the world was to ride Pecos Bill's horse, Widow-Maker.

Now, Widow-Maker was the meanest horse that ever trod the earth. His eyes were ball lightning and he was shod with tornadoes. His favorite food was dynamite, and some swore up and down that (beggin' your pardon) he crapped nitroglycerin. He'd been Pecos Bill's loyal companion for a long, long time, and by the time the weddin' rolled around—well, picture a storm the size of Texas made of wildfire and eaten up with jealousy as well.

Pecos Bill knew Widow-Maker's moods better than anybody, and he tried tellin' Sue that no man had ever ridden Widow-Maker and lived…and that was when the horse was in an amiable mood. But Sue had heard a bit of gossip at the weddin' feast about how she wasn't _quite_ as good at ridin' as Pecos Bill was, and—proud Western gal that she was—she decided to prove that a lie right then and there. She knew how stories get about, you see, and she didn't want any doubts to remain in anyone's mind that she was worthy of Bill. She didn't want anyone covetin' her place as Bill's wife, thinkin', _Slue-Foot Sue can't even ride Bill's horse! She's not so much! I could beat her all hollow!_

It's a terrible thing to be a new bride and know that countless women hate you for bein' married to the man you love. It's even worse when you feel you have to prove that you're just as amazin' as your husband is, if not more so.

Well, Sue sweet-talked Bill around eventually, and he agreed to let her try ridin' Widow-Maker, though he weren't happy about it, no sir. And so, still in her white wedding dress with the big hoops, Sue leapt onto Widow-Maker's back.

Widow-Maker promptly bucked her off, of course, probably thinkin' that she'd go flyin' halfway across the West and land in a forest or desert no one had even discovered yet. She went flyin' all right, but not as anyone expected. The hoops made Sue bounce like a ball when she hit the ground, and the dress and veil—well, they _were_ made of wind and cloud and river mist, so it's not too surprising that it sent her spiraling even higher than Widow-Maker had bucked her. And this went on for a while, with the hoops bouncin' Sue back off the ground right quick and the wind-and-cloud weddin' dress waftin' her higher and higher into the air, until finally she hit her head on the moon.

Sue grabbed on with her fingernails and hauled herself up onto the moon's shoulder, beggin' the moon's pardon for bangin' into her and requesting her help to get back down to earth. But the moon was still feeling irked that she hadn't been allowed to attend Sue's weddin', to say nothin' of the fact that the sky was a lot darker without all the stars that Pecos Bill had shot out. (Young stars were growing where the old stars had been—the night sky's like an orchard in some ways—but they were barely seedlings. The moon knew it would take the baby stars a goodish while to grow up.) And Sue wearin' a necklace of most of the stars that Bill had shot down and had then strung the way children string popcorn come Christmas time…that didn't help none.

"I need something big enough and bright enough to light the night sky," said the moon, looking at Sue with dislike. "And that starry necklace of yours isn't any good—once trees are cut into planks, they don't generally sprout again."

So Sue took off her veil made of river-mist, handed it to the moon, and asked if that would do. The moon examined it and allowed that the mist drops _could_ freeze into gleaming, diamond-like stars. Then she tossed it high above her head, and the weddin' veil unfolded into the longest and most brilliant river of stars imaginable. (Some folks on Earth, seein' it spill across the sky, believed that a gigantic cow had kicked over a pail of milk, and so they called it the Milky Way…but it's really Sue's weddin' veil.)

The moon had to agree that the veil had lit up the night; there were thousands more stars now than before. But she still wasn't all that pleased with bein' denied a seat at the weddin', so she didn't build a ladder of moonbeams for Sue to climb down. No, she told Sue to jump from her shoulder to a pile of clouds that, from the moon, looked about as big as an ant's handkerchief.

"If you don't land there, you'll be bouncin' for all time," said the moon. "If you do land there…well, you'll have other problems, but bouncin' won't be one of them."

Doubtless the moon meant to scare Sue, sayin' this. But Sue wasn't afraid. She thanked the moon prettily, apologized for colliding with her once more, and dived off of the moon's shoulder as if she were going for a swim in a mountain lake. The winds and clouds in her dress caught her mood, and soon she wasn't so much diving as flyin'.

She finally landed on a bank of clouds somewhere over the Badlands of North Dakota. Now, you can't bounce off of clouds; they're like the softest and fluffiest of feather beds. Sue was cautiously wobblin' around, learnin' to walk on the cloud bed, when she saw the riders.

Slue-Foot Sue knew the cattle as soon as she clapped eyes on them, for they were larger than elephants, with red flames for eyes and steel hooves and brands that were still crackling with fire, pursued by haggard cowboys with blurry fog-mist eyes. Each cowboy was so soaked with sweat as to look as if he'd been caught in a flash flood, and despite their horses outpacing the fastest train, they weren't drawin' anywhere near the black-horned cattle. So she knew, as any cowpoke would, that the cattle were the Devil's own, and the riders were the ghosts of hellbound cowboys, condemned to chase them forever…or until they caught the herd. Whichever came first.

That didn't set well with Sue at all. It was still her weddin' day, so far as she was aware, and she didn't much cotton to the notion of leavin' folks to eternal torment while she made her way back home to Bill. The situation seemed a plumb sorry one to her. So she allowed she'd do something about it.

First she tried runnin' on foot, but though she raised a cyclone in her wake, _that_ didn't do a peck o' good; the riders' horses were faster than any human, even humans like Sue and Bill. 

Then she bound the cyclone her runnin' had caused to the front of a thundercloud, and it was the finest one-hoss gig you ever did see, if you can think of a cyclone as a horse. 

But then the sun saw that gig and decided it was also the finest racin' carriage he'd ever seen a mortal build—and the sun knows about fast horses and carriages, havin' a horse of white-hot flame and a chariot of red and yellow fire. And when he realized that this was Sue, THE Sue, whose weddin' he'd been barred from, he told Sue he'd like to race her—in a tone that said it didn't much matter if Sue'd like to race _him_. Sue didn't argue; she was a sensible gal who knew when a man's pride was talkin'. So she agreed.

Well, the two of them sped seven times around the world in as many minutes. Though Sue couldn't beat the sun, she kept level with him all the way. But that didn't put her anywhere near the riders, much less the herd.

By now the sun was tired out, as he'd done a week's work in as much time as it takes a rooster to crow. "I could've beat you all hollow," he said sulkily, "if I still had that sunbeam that you're wearin' on your finger."

Sue wasn't best pleased by that. She loved her weddin' ring, and givin' it up seemed like a betrayal of the man who'd given it to her. So though the sun commanded and pleaded that she give him her ring, she said no two times runnin'. But then she thought of the gaunt, haggard hellbound riders and, if she was one of them, what she'd think of someone who put ownin' a shiny piece of jewelry above endin' eternal torture.

So she squared her shoulders, pressed the sunbeam ring to her lips, and placed it in the sun's hand. The sun was so pleased at bein' whole again that he turned several cartwheels, even though suns aren't supposed to do that. ('Tain't dignified.) 

"Anythin' you want, you just have to ask," he said grandly. 

It was on the tip of Sue's tongue to say that she wanted her ring back, but—and this may be the bravest thing she ever did—she swallowed the words and told the truth. "I want to go home to Pecos Bill," she said, "and as close to when I got blown up to the sky as possible. But before I do that, I've got to free the ghost riders."

"Why?" asked the sun. "They're pizen-lowdown and rotten clean through—like maggoty rattlesnakes."

They argued back and forth for a while, the sun insistin' that the riders had earned their place in Hell seventy times over and Sue sayin' she reckoned that a person could get mighty sorry for doin' evil when they'd been taken outside of time to be punished forever. The sun didn't think that forever was long enough for some crimes. Sue insisted that bein' punished forever would send her into a blue rage, not make her sorry…and round and round they went again. Finally they compromised on Sue doin' what she could to help the riders that were right sorry for whatever they'd done and willin' to make up for it however they could, though the sun plainly didn't think that a single solitary rider fell into _that_ category.

"If you're really set on doin' this," the sun said, "you need a horse. And not just any horse, but one as good as Widow-Maker. You've got two of the ingredients already."

Squinching up her face, Sue studied the cyclone and the thunderstorm for a while. Then she squeezed the two together, moldin' the thunder-cyclone as if it were clay. Soon there was a grand mare standin' in front of her, coat the bluish-black of a thunderhead, mane and tail the teal grey of a pre-cyclone sky, and hooves shod in swirl-patterned silver. But it didn't move. It was no more'n a statue of cloud and wind, though a very pretty statue.

Then Sue shook some thoughts out of one ear, because wind and lightning are fast, but nothin'is as quick as thought. One was about the riders, and the second about the West Sue so loved, and the third and biggest and best of all was about Pecos Bill. She pressed the thoughts (which looked a bit like bubbles and a bit like silken rope) every which way on the mare's body. And everywhere the thoughts touched the mare, it seemed to get stronger.

But the mare was still nothin' but a statue, though it was now the kind of statue that's shown in a museum.

Sue thought and thought. Then she glanced back at the sun. "Could I please have the blue-white star from the ring I gave you?"

"Why?" asked the sun, puzzled. "It's not burnin' anymore. It's cold."

"Oh," said Sue, droopin' slightly. "I was thinkin' my horse might be able to run if it had a heart."

"One heart won't be enough," said the sun. "You need three." And it put a fireball of sunlight in the horse's chest.

Sue protested, sayin' that the sun had been the weaker for the loss of one sunbeam. But the sun said that only had happened because the sunbeam had been taken from him, instead of him givin' it freely. "What you give, you get back," he said quietly. "What's stolen from you leaves a gapin' hole."

Sue thought about that, and admitted it made sense. "I suppose," she said without enthusiasm, "that I'll have to go back and beg the moon for some moonlight."

"Not a bit!" said the sun. "The light from the moon is mine, reflected off of her mirror. Reflected light wouldn't do a scrap of good. You need to climb up to the North Star and ask her for some light, so that the hoss'll be able to find the right direction no matter what."

Then the sun packed up the thundercloud-and-cyclone horse in a knapsack and told Sue not to open that knapsack or even take it off until she met the North Star. Finally, he gave her what he said was a guide to help her find the North Star, but it was all numbers and degrees. Sue had no notion what the sun was talkin' about, and she doubted if Bill would have, either. But she thanked the sun graciously just the same and set out on her way, tellin' herself that she could surely find the right path and master it; that, after all, was half of what she and Bill did.

Soon she found a stack o' clouds that looked as if they might be a rickety ladder, and she started climbin'.

Sue climbed for what felt like days and weeks and months and years, and still she was no closer to the top. But eventually the rickety ladder became a strong, sturdy staircase, and then the staircase transformed into a mountain so high that it towered above both Earth and the palaces of the sun and the moon, and so sharp that every handhold and every ledge were like grippin' or standin' on a razor blade. But Sue? She didn't stop. She kept climbin', though by the time she reached the top of the mountain, her arms and legs were more wounds than limbs and if she had three drops o' blood left in her body, then two o' them drops were lonely. 

The top of the mountain seemed huger than the rest of it. Yet there weren't nothin' there but an abandoned fort with a watchtower off to the right, a wasteland the size o' California to the left, and what looked like an ocean o' stars behind the fort and the watchtower. Sue had no idea where to go from here, but she used her eyes and ears and heard someone breathin' in the watchtower. 

_Well,_ she thought, _they might give me some bandages or a mouthful o' water afore I go on._ And so she shouted out, "Hello, Watchtower! I'm Slue-Foot Sue, wife o' Pecos Bill! I've a story for your ears and need o' your help!"

There was silence for a moment, and then a gal's voice shouted back, "Why should I help anyone related to Pecos Bill? It's because o' him that I'm here all alone in an empty fort! He shot my brothers and sisters out o' the sky, and now there's no one to turn aside the Devil's herd when the riders chase them this high!"

Then Sue, sitting herself down on the ground before the watchtower, began tellin' her story about her adventures in the sky and how she was seekin' a way to catch the herd and end the riders' torment. Before she was done, a beautiful but stern soldier-woman in glowin' bluish-white came out of the watchtower, sat down across from her, and listened quiet-like.

"I'm right grateful for the river o' stars," said the North Star (who, o' course, was the watchtower woman) when Sue was done, "but that don't fix everythin'. See that wasteland? That's where stars grow. But they won't grow without water, and there's no buckets here, even if I could spend more than a few minutes away from the watchtower. Water that wasteland seven times over so that every star in that river c'n spring up an' guard the heavens against the Devil's critters, an' the fire you want for your hoss'll be yours. I'll even tell you how to get the third bit o'fire. What d'you say?"

Sue agreed. After all, her hands an' feet were half-healed already. An' after about, oh, fifteen minutes, she flexed her fingers an' toes, took off her weddin' slippers and shoved one inside the other to make a bucket. After all, "slue-foot" means "big, clumsy feet what turn out" and Sue had the biggest and the most turned-out feet in the history of the world. 

One shoe-bucket was about enough to soak the wasteland with star water from end to end once. Sue did it seven times, and it didn't take long before stars sprouted up, young an' bright an' strong. And not long after that, the fort was filled to overflowing with new soldier-stars. Hundreds of thousands of millions of others sprang into the sky an' flew off to territories that had been too empty for too long. The North Star, smilin', said Sue had done well.

"Now, if you could just open the knapsack," she said, "I'll put a starfire heart in your horse."

Sue opened the knapsack and took the horse out, and when it had grown to a life-size statue again—now warm and alive because of the sunfire in it—the North Star rubbed her hands together as if she was washin' them. Then she cupped 'em, gentle-like, and Sue saw that she was holdin' a globe of bluish-white fire. Then the North Star touched the horse's chest with the starfire globe, an' its eyes shone smart an' bold.

Sue thanked her kindly, and then asked where she could find the third heart for the horse.

The North Star hemmed and hawed, but she finally allowed that the heart would have to be Sue's own, or at least a fragment of it.

"That can't work!" Sue snapped."I wouldn't be able to keep lovin' my Bill if I handed over my heart to this horse! I wouldn't even be human! _That_ ain't right."

"I don't make the rules," the North Star said in a voice that had "sorry" branded on it. "But I will say that you wouldn't have set out to find three hearts for the horse if part o' you didn't belong to this search rather'n Bill." She shrugged. "Folks have to belong to lots of things in this big ol' world."

"Assumin' that's true," Sue said, careful-like, "how would I take that part out?"

"You put your right hand over your heart," the North Star answered, "and then press down. You'll have to fumble about for a long, thin piece of heart once, twice, three times. The third time, whatever you grab, don't let it go—even though it'll feel like you're pulling yourself apart. Once it's out, you push it into the horse's chest…and don't you stop! You _dassn't_ stop, not even for a minute."

"And once the horse has his third heart, everything'll be fine?"

"Shoot, no!" yelled the North Star. "You'll be missin' the part o' you that cares most about this search. You'll have to make yourself care about it again real fast to grow that part back, or y'won't be able to finish the quest. And iffen you don't finish, odds are that you won't be seein' your Bill again anytime soon."

Sue gulped at that, but she did as the North Star said, pressing her hand against her chest and tryin' not to be too astonished when it sank beneath the skin. She fumbled about a bit once, then twice, and didn't find nothin', but the third time her fingers hooked somethin' and she pulled like she was reelin' in a big salmon. She hollered a good bit, too—nothin' hurts like tryin' to tear out part o' you—but she didn't stop for one minute, no siree. 

And then it was out, and Sue examined it. 

It was long and wiry, with lots of twists and bends that made it look like an unbent fish hook. And it was covered in streaks of color—all the shades of the desert, of the Rio Grande, and of Bill's eyes. It seemed unbearable to give it up.

 _But I need to put it in the horse,_ she thought. _Elsewise, I might as well as not've pulled it free in the first place._

It was tricky. If she shoved it in one way, it popped out the other; if she slipped it in at an angle, the other side would bulge out. She tried and tried, but her fragment of heart simply would not fit.

"Oh, please," she said to the strip of heart. "You need to be part of this horse, so that we can save some fellow cowpokes and then ride home."

And just like that, the strip of heart melted beneath the hide, leaving the horse statue bluish-black with a long, twisty white streak down the chest.

For a moment, all was still. Then the horse shook herself and stamped her feet, saying, "Good, that's done. Hello, Lady North Star, and thank you for your advice. Hello, Slue-Foot Sue. I'm Corazón—Corazón Dapplegrim. And I think we might have a chance now."

***

After they both said farewell to the North Star, Corazón told Sue to get on her back. "There's no way for me to climb down that mountain," she said, "but if we ford that river of stars and gallop across three wastelands, we should be able to deal with the Devil's herd quickly enough. And then we can trot home to Pecos Bill. I don't know about you, but I've some choice words to say to Widow-Maker."

"Didn't expect a talking horse," Sue admitted, sitting astride.

"The sun talks, the North Star talks, and you talk," said Corazón. "My hearts are the same as yours. Why shouldn't I speak?"

Sue thought a bit and allowed as that was true. "But why Dapplegrim?" she asked. "You're black, not dappled."

"Oh, it's an honored name among talking horses," Corazón said airily. "Supposed to be very lucky. You never heard the name before? The sun and the stars know it."

Sue might have said more, but right then they finished fording the stream and entered the first wasteland.

It was white-hot—the sky bleached the color of bone and the sand the color of the hottest fire. The air was so hot it cooked you from the inside out, and lumbering across the wastes were monsters of poisonous gases and molten liquid that just barely were shaped like humans—though with too many eyes and limbs and teeth. They saw Sue and Corazón and immediately began to slither and slink after them.

"Get away from my horse!" Sue shouted, shakin' her fist in the air. And when she lowered it, she found she was holdin' a rope made out of fire. She tucked it in a deep pocket of her ruined weddin' dress (for Sue knew you allus need real pockets, no matter the outfit).

"I can beat them while trotting," said Corazón, and did just that. 

Then they rode into the second wasteland, which was a slaughterhouse. What wasn't blood-soaked grass was an actual river of blood, and what wasn't either were creatures in blood-stained caps and clothes, whisperin' all the fears humans have about how hated they are and all the false directions to make sure you get lost and die. Striding among them, and paying no attention to the whispers, were critters whose bodies were made of flayed corpses—humans an' beasts an' some that weren't neither. The flayed critters were fifteen feet tall if they were an inch and had way, way too many mouths.

"Get along with you!" Sue said, turning on Corazón's back to punch the closest Rawhide and Bloody Bones. And when she drew her fist back, she was holding a large chunk of meat. And that too went in her pocket.

"I can beat them while cantering," said Corazón, and did just that.

Then they reached the third wasteland, and it looked like the ruination of a forest after a huge fire. Even tree was a blackened skeleton, and the air stank of stale smoke and mold and decay. There was no sun, and the sky itself seemed to have been scorched gray. The ground was fragile underfoot; it was more ash than earth.

At first it seemed empty. But then Corazón slowed, and Slue-Foot Sue leaned down to see what was wrong. There was a thin net stretched as far as the eye could see before them, and if Corazón took one more step, they would both be snared and dragged beneath the earth by the angry dead.

Well, that didn't suit Sue at all. So she leaned down from Corazón's back and snapped the net in four places and then rolled it up so that her horse would have a safe-ish path. And she stuffed the net in her pocket along with the meat and the rope.

"Now," said Corazón, "we will race like the wind." And only a second or two later, they were in a dead end among the clouds. 

"The cattle will be here soon," said Corazón. 

Sue nodded, and spread the soft, clingy, ashen net over the cloud-ground. Next, she threw the raw demon meat onto the center of the net. Third, she stripped her springy hoops—the ones big enough to encircle the earth— out of her weddin' dress and bound them with the rope of fire, makin' a corral. She just left one tiny gap to act as a gate.

Then she sat back to wait. And purty soon, the cattle arrived, speedin' toward her and far outrunnin' the cowpokes tryin' to catch 'em.

When they smelled the demon meat, they just about jumped into the corral. It took them a long while to realize that their hooves and legs were all twined about with that net and that they weren't goin' anywhere. A few tried rammin' the hoops with their steel horns…but that only bounced them to the other side of the corral. Which, since their legs were still bound by the net, wasn't any too pleasant. 

Then Sue—who was holding the gap shut with all her strength—hallooed the riders and told 'em to come right quick. At first they hesitated, thinkin' this was just another of the Devil's tricks to plague 'em, but then Sue swore in the name of the West and the Rio Grande and her very own name that she was playin' fair, and the riders sensed she was tellin' the truth. They rode forward on their lathered horses, and then each one tied a knot in the fire-rope, bindin' the corral shut.

So technically, they'd been the ones to capture the cattle, as the Devil had demanded. And now he couldn't hold them anymore.

Sue never knew how many were freed that day. Corazón always said that it was seventy times seven. What she did know was that as the first few started vanishing, Corazón nuzzled her hand. "Time we were goin'," she said. "Ol' Nick won't be happy."

Noddin', Sue vaulted onto the horse's back, light as a snowflake.

A hideous bellow shook the clouds.

"Now," said Corazón, "we fly." And she leaped off of the cloud into the air.

***

Back on earth, Pecos Bill, poor soul, didn't have the least notion what had happened to Sue. As far as he was concerned, she'd been eaten up by the sky. After all, she'd gone up and up and hadn't come down. 

So he'd been standin' in front of the church for days on end (along with his friends, who weren't goin' to let him suffer alone, no sir), surveyin' the sky and, every now and again, firing his gun up in the air so as to let Sue know where he was.

"She'll be back," he kept tellin' his friends—ignorin' their doubtful frowns. "I know her. She'll be back, and with a grand ol' tale to tell."

Most of his friends figured that he wasn't willin' to admit that Sue was dead, despite believin' that she was. Maybe he wasn't. Or maybe he really did think she was fine. It's a bit hard to tell with Bill.

Whatever he thought, he didn't expect to see a woman in rags flyin' through the air on a wingless horse. So far as he was concerned, this might be the messenger from whoever or whatever had stolen his Sue. Which is why he shot at her.

But the bullet didn't hit either the woman or the horse. Instead, the horse nipped Bill's bullet out of the air, nibbled on it as if it were an apple or a carrot, and then swallowed it.

Well, Bill was plumb amazed at that. He had time for a second shot, but instead he spied the field where the horse would probably land, holstered his gun and ran forward, his friends (includin' Widow-Maker, who may have sensed what was comin') hot on his heels.

And there, in a meadow not far from the church where they were married, sat Sue on the most beautiful horse in the West.

And the horse spoke to him.

"How do you do, Pecos Bill. I'm Corazón." There was a pause. "Your bullets need salt."

While Bill was starin' at this—even his own horse didn't speak—Sue dismounted from her horse's back, and Corazón trotted off to speak to Widow-Maker. No one ever knew what she told him, as it was all in whinnies, but Widow-Maker never again tried to hurt Sue. Could be that he decided that since he would be sharin' a stable with a horse who spoke both Equine and Human, that would be unwise.

And when the story came out, why, Bill was the proudest man on the face of the earth. There ain't many women (or anyone else) who spend their weddin' day talkin' to stars and planets, creatin' a horse, and tweakin' the Devil's nose, so to speak.

As for the weddin' ring…well, that had to be replaced, of course. Which was why Bill ended up ridin' all the way to Saturn to ask if the lady planet would sell him one of her rings for his beloved wife—

But that's another story.


End file.
